Wednesday, September 14, 2011

If you are looking for a quick fun project consider the kntted necklace and bracelet kit from Swallow Hill. There are enough beads to complete one project , but enough rayon to make several. Addtional bead soup may be purchased. I am certain that you will want to make more than one, I know I will.

Even though I do have some lovely jewelry there are times when I want something with sparkel but not so serious and more fun. I chose the crystal bead kit because Caribbean trip next month and I decided this would be the most neutral since I do not know what I am going to pack.

The beads come loose so the first thing to do is to string them on the rayon. If you use a bead mat and a dental floss threader the stringing goes quickly and is quite easy. The mat keeps the beads from rolling around and they are easily picked up on the threader that you can buy in any drug store. The kit comes with a big eye needle that also can be used.

Since I wasn’t sure how to figure out the amount of beads I would need I decided to string them all. The problems with doing this is that you have to stop and slide the beads down on the rayon as you work to give yourself thread to work with. I decided that I preferred this to making joins in the work. You can use the Russian join for a strong, seamless join if you want to string only part of the beads. If you do this you will have to cut the rayon, string more beads and then make a join in the rayon to attach the two parts.

The pattern calls for casting on 90 stitches and tells you that you will end up with a necklace of approximately 15 inches that will stretch a bit longer from the weight when you wear it.. I knew that I wanted something longer so I cast on 110 stitches. My finished piece measures about 21 inches ( see the picture). When I cast off all the stitches according to the pattern instruction I made a tiny knot at the end of my work and I left a long tail of rayon, twice the length of my finished piece that I am going to use to whip stitch the two long ends together to form a rope. I will then twist the rope to coil it so that the rows swirl.